-61- 

 JEFFERSON TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON, MONTICELLO, JUNE 19, 1796 



Jefferson and Washington were both much interested in legumes 



as soil-restoring plants. The following excerpt tells 



something of Jefferson's experiences with them. 



I . . . talk to you of my peas and clover. As to the latter 

 article, I have great encouragement from the friendly nature of our 

 soil. I think I have had, both the last and present year, as good 

 clover from common grounds, which had brought several crops of wheat 

 and corn without ever having been manured, as I ever saw on the lots 

 around Philadelphia. I verily believe that a yield of thirty-four 

 acres, sowed on wheat April was twelvemonth, has given me a ton to the 

 acre at its first cutting this spring. The stalks extended, measured 

 three and a half feet long very commonly. Another field, a year older, 

 and which yielded as well the last year, has sensibly fallen off this 

 year. My exhausted fields bring a clover not high enough for hay, but 

 I hope to make seed from it. Such as these, however, I shall here- 

 after put into peas in the broadcast, proposing that one of my sowings 

 or wheat shall be after two years of clover, and the other after two 

 years of peas. I am trying the white boiling pea of Europe (the Albany 

 pea) this year, till I can get the hog pea of England, which is the 

 most productive of all. But the true winter vetch is what we want 

 extremely. I have tried this year the Carolina drill. It is abso- 

 lutely perfect. Nothing can be more simple, nor perform its office 

 more perfectly for a single row. I shall try to make one to sow four 

 rows at a time of v/heat or peas, at twelve inches distance. I have 

 one of the Scotch threshing machines nearly finished. It is copied 

 exactly from a model Mr. Pinckney sent me, only that I have put the 

 whole works (except the horse wheel) into a single frame, movable from 

 one field to another on the two axles of a wagon. It will be ready 

 in time for the harvest which is coming on, which will give it a full 

 trial. Our wheat and rye are generally fine, and the prices talked 

 of bid fair to indemnify us for the poor crops of the two last years. 



H. A. Washington, ed.. The W riting s of Thomas Jefferson . 4:141-144 {Washington, 

 D. C, Taylor & Maury, 1854). 



